It's not the boss battle, it's right after you meet the red haired girl, and she starts shooting at you in the coridor, and you hallucinate about Psycho Mantis.

Yes, exactly, that part.

We assumed the controller was broken as well, but apparantly the buttons worked in other situations, which makes it odd.

So you don't need to select cards to use them? Nice.

It's odd, because we've already found stuff like rations, and Snake talked about smuggling ciggarettes to the mission, but there doesn't seem to be a way to use them.

Cigarettes have two uses 

1- It makes you look cool!

2- Also the cigarettes smoke enable you see invisible lasers (or you can use the IR vision)

As for where you go after the Mantis fight use the door behind the disk. Psycho Mantis open it for you before dting if if i remember right.

I see, buy how do I select these items for use? the L2 button doesn't seem to work, except it works in other games.

I'm not after the mantis fight, I'm after you try to save the black guy who then dies of heart attack or something and you encounter this red haired girl and you fight your way out of the cell blocks and then she starts shooting at you and goes up an elevator and snake hallucinates about psycho mantis.

Are you fighting Psycho Mantis?

switch controller port 1 to port 2.

Are you holding L2 down? I think you hold it down and swap through items to equip them.

LOL! Nobody pays the OP any attention and keep talking about the Psycho Mantis fight.

Anyway, if memory serves, there's an option to set the L2/R2 buttons to quickly choose the last item you had and there's an option to make Snake go from having an item equipped to having nothing equipped. Either way, the best way to choose weapons and items is to hold down the button (can't remember if it's L1/R1 or L2/R2 and I'm too lazy to fire the game up and check right now), and highlight the thing you want to use.

If you walk in front of a door and it opens, you have access to that level. If it's still locked, you'll get a higher card later on. Cigarettes can be selected and you'll know you're using them because Snake's health will slowly go down.

Any time you're in doubt about where to go (and I mean ANYTIME) press the select button and ask one of your partners for help. The game tells you everything you'll ever need to know about where to go if you know who to ask. It seems boring this day and age but at the time, listening to people talk on the codec was amazing. Also, much of the story takes place during those conversations. Don't EVER skip them. You'll never get lost.

Also, you may need to contact Meryl on the codec. If that's the case, her "phone number" is on the back of the MGS box. If you don't have the box, it's 140.15 .

See guys!? This is what happens when games hold your hand. Gamers lose their edge.

Ahh yes, the codec of Meryl. The Coronel tells you that it's on the back of the Cd or disc or something like that, and I was at that time "what cd? what disc???". It took me ages to figure it out. But I think if you waste some time, Meryl just calls you.

I'll be able to tell you what to do, I've completed the game too many times.

I'm not sure where you are though. What has happened recently?

I think D21 is right, you're at the part where you have to go down the elevator and blow a hole in the wall with C4. I was stuck on this part when I was 8 or 9.